Hardware (The Carlotta Carlyle Mysteries)

by Linda Barnes

  “You recognize his voice?”

  “Nope. I roll down the window. Man reaches in and flips off my top lights and shuts off my radio.”

  “He ask you how to do it?”

  “Nope. So I say, easy as I can, ‘This is your lucky day, boys. You just earned yourselves some money.’ I always carry a hundred on me, five twenties, on account of robberies. You don’t give ’em somethin’, they kill you.”

  “They weren’t interested?”

  “Oh, they took it. But the man by my open window hits the door-lock string, and a second guy with another cannon slides in front, right next to me. That makes two in the back, and the front guy says nothin’ but ‘Keep your hands where I can see ’em’ and ‘Turn right here,’ ‘Turn left here.’ Don’t ask for more money. Don’t seem to hear nothin’ I say.”

  “What did you say?”

  “What would you be saying, honey,’sides your prayers? The one up front is white, and I ain’t seen the third one good, but I know there’s a brother in back. I try bluffin’ that I got a tracer on the cab, and this white guy laughs real evil. Says then he’ll have to kill me quicker. I figure it’s just talk; wants me to sweat, so I act cocky, like I would if somebody’s trying to psych me out in the ring.”

  “What did the white man look like?”

  “Young and mean. Evil face. Skinny and sharp, like he ain’t never had enough to eat.”

  “Hair, eyes, height?”

  “Light brown. Buzz cut. Pale eyes. Medium height.”

  “Five ten?”

  “No taller than that.”

  Marvin ran out of booze and signaled his brother for a refill. While Leroy was gone, Marvin asked me to help him get more comfortable. I stuffed pillows behind his back. He didn’t quite muffle his groans this time. Had to keep up the bravado for baby brother, I guess.

  “We could do this another time if you’re hurting,” I said.

  “Your leg don’t hurt none?”

  “It hurts,” I admitted.

  “Let’s get back to business. You know, I’m tryin’ to be cool and sweat’s pourin’ off me like I’m gettin’ ready to go fifteen rounds. I got an adrenaline high so bad I can hardly sit still, and I figure, hey, if they’re gonna waste me, they’re gonna have to bleed first. I follow directions till I know where I am. I figure the two guys in back are mostly out of it, ’cause they’re behind the shield, and what I need to do is get outta the car and mess with these fuckers. I’m gettin’ angry.”

  I nodded.

  “I know the park real good. I know those brambles. Got tossed in ’em plenty when I was a kid. Guys in back tryin’ to talk to whitey, and he reaches back to open the partition. Gives me a chance, so I hit the brake hard, then floor it, twist the steering wheel, and jump the curb where I know it’s steep. I’m hopin’ whitey’s gonna whack his head on the ride down. Soon as we stop, I’m out. But the guy behind me’s out quicker, and he slaps me down with his gun. That’s how I got this lump on the head. Then they’re all over me. And I figure I’m dead, them kickin’ me and all. And I’m startin’ to think it might be better if they shot me.”

  Leroy brought Marvin’s glass, full, and another beer for me. I declined, so little brother sipped it.

  “Then?” I said.

  Marvin shrugged. “I lie there like I’m dead. They kick me a couple more times, but I don’t move. I can take a body punch.”

  I nodded. I’d never seen him fight, but I’d heard.

  “White guy, I think, comes real close, sticks his cannon in my ear. All I can do not to cry out. Then somebody says ‘Stop.’ Same voice says ‘We ain’t gettin’ paid enough to kill.’”

  “Hold it,” I said. “Exact words?”

  Cabbies are getting beaten for a reason, Lee Cochran had said. Finally, confirmation, a legitimate reason to investigate!

  “I’m tellin’ it as close as I can,” Marvin said defensively.

  I touched a hand to my forehead. The headache was revving up.

  “This is something the police ought to know, Marvin,” I said.

  “It’s not something I can tell them, Carlotta. That cannon don’t move from my ear. White boy’s pissed, says ‘This guy’s different; he tried to kill us.’ Other guy says ‘Wouldn’t you?’ and kinda laughs and the gun comes outta my ear. I’m tryin’ to keep still, like when you throw a fight.”

  “Marvin!”

  “You so naive, babe. I forget.”

  “Marvin, they say anything else? They use names?”

  He started to shake his massive head, thought better of it, and said, “Don’t remember any names.”

  “Phil Yancey?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “Descriptions of the other two? ID marks? Anybody got something useful like a tattoo, a scar?”

  “I saw the black dude best, under the lamppost. Hat and raincoat, medium height, medium weight, nobody who’d stand out in a crowd. White guy I told you about.”

  “Third man?”

  “Nothin’ but a voice.”

  “You thought Hispanic?”

  “I’m not sure on that.”

  “You know why you thought that? Accent?”

  “I dunno.”

  I wondered if Marvin was holding back, keeping quiet about some detail he could use to wreak a more personal revenge once he’d regained his formidable strength.

  Yvonne’s staccato heels announced her. “Leroy, your brother’s tired to death.” She scolded Leroy but her eyes drilled into me. “Look at him. How much you give him to drink? You tryin’ to kill him?”

  “Vonnie,” said Leroy.

  “Don’t ‘Vonnie’ me. Get out of here and take the trash with you.”

  “I’m Marvin’s friend,” I said. “I came to help.”

  “Sure. We get lots of help from your kind.”

  “I’m not here to represent white people. I’m a friend of the family’s. You can apologize anytime. Break right in.”

  “Carlotta,” Leroy murmured, “she ain’t gonna do no apology.”

  I said, “I’m out of here. Take care of yourself, Marvin. And change the damn sheets once in a while, okay, nurse?”

  “Change ’em yourself,” Yvonne said.

  I sucked in a deep breath. If I stayed any longer I’d have to apologize to her, and I wasn’t in the mood.

  “Marvin,” I said. “You’ve got something belongs to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Come on.”

  He reached a hand under the pillow, came out with my .38. Unfired. Or recently cleaned and reloaded.

  “Thanks for the loan,” he said.

  “Leroy,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “Take me home.”

  FIFTEEN

  Leroy insisted on helping me up the walkway and onto the porch of my three-story Victorian, inherited from my late aunt Bea and located in an area of Cambridge where I couldn’t afford to rent, much less buy. He kept his muscled arm tight around my shoulders. I wondered whether anyone in the People’s Republic of Cambridge could be scandalized at the idea of a white woman with a black boyfriend. On the whole, I thought not.

  “Gotta go,” he said, before I could invite him in for coffee, far more wary of racial hostility than I was. “Gloria’s gonna be mad. I shoulda checked in.”

  If there are such things as mama’s boys, I thought, there are certainly sister’s boys; Gloria owned three.

  I entered the hall and negotiated the single step down to the living room, my concentration riveted by the lurching, swinging motion required to advance via crutches. As soon as I stopped moving, sinking gratefully into my aunt’s rocking chair, I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t spot anything out of place. A slightly different smell. Had Roz, in a burst of frenetic energy, polished the furniture? I ran my finger across a mahogany end table, left a streak in the dust. No. Had something spoiled in the refrigerator and managed to send its pungent fumes this far?

  “Roz,” I yelled. She lives on the third floor, within hollering range.

>   No reply.

  My desk had changed.

  Even from the back, I could see that the cables and wires from the useless computer had been arranged in a different configuration. I hopped over and sat in my desk chair. The computer setup was alien. It wasn’t the one I’d bought for fifty bucks, and at considerable bodily risk, during my outing with Sam.

  “What?” Roz demanded from the doorway. No “Welcome home.” No “How are you?” Just “What?”

  I’d interrupted her at some vital task, that was obvious from the attitude. Possibly painting, which would account for the crooked orange smears across her forehead and cheek. Aside from the vivid Day-Glo highlights, she was a vision in black. Skinny black tights disappeared into high-heeled ankle boots. A loosely crocheted black sweater, its open pattern revealing a lack of underwear, completed the ensemble. Except for the black turban. And the multiple earrings. And the ring for each finger.

  She looked like I’d caught her in the middle of whipping up a cauldron of witch’s brew.

  “Whoa,” she said. “Neat eye makeup.” I trusted she was kidding. “But the crutches are retro.”

  Having no idea how to respond to that, I said, “Roz, something’s different.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I can’t tell,” I said.

  “I wasn’t sure you could see it from there.”

  “What are we talking about, Roz?”

  She yanked down the neck of her sweater, came closer. “Incredible, huh?”

  Between her assertive breasts was a tattoo any dishonorably discharged Marine would have been proud to call his own. Two screaming eagles engaged in a perverse sexual act is probably the best way to describe it.

  “You designed it yourself,” I guessed.

  “Yep.”

  “But it comes off?”

  “Forever. Like a diamond.”

  I sucked air. I do not comment on Roz’s fashion statements.

  “I’m gonna get more. I have incredible sketches,” she said.

  I envisioned the tattooed lady at an X-rated circus.

  “Oooh,” she said suddenly. “You got another package.”

  “Huh?”

  “From Miami Sleaze.”

  Thurman W. Vandenburg is the lawyer who handles Carlos Roldan Gonzales’s many entanglements in the States. I’ve never met him. We’ve talked on the phone. Miami Sleaze sums him up nicely.

  “I figured I ought to open it,” Roz said, “considering the other ones. You were in the hospital.”

  “More cash?”

  “Seven large. My tumbling mats are stuffed, so I put it in the cat box.”

  She’s honest, I recited to myself. Weird, weirder, weirdest, but honest.

  “So, I’ve got dough stashed in my gym mats. You’ve got major bucks in the Kitty Litter. If I start smurfing it, I could sleep better nights.”

  Smurfing is drug lingo. Smurfers—the bottom feeders of the business—make bank deposits, each no more than $9,900 because cash deposits of ten thou or more have to be reported to Uncle. Typically the smurf gets the extra hundred for his time. Big dealers need lots of smurfs.

  “What’s your problem?” I asked. “The money’s lumpy? You don’t have to sleep on it, Roz.”

  “It’s just I don’t like it when I bring new guys over. One of them might have a nose for cash.”

  “I’ll take care of the money,” I promised. I didn’t like the idea of smurfing. Local banks have been on the lookout lately for repeat nine-thousand-buck depositors. I didn’t want a collection of accounts all over town. If the cash kept Roz from sleeping with strangers, I thought, maybe I ought to leave it where it was.

  “Soon,” Roz said.

  “This is not my computer,” I said, trying to get the discussion back on track.

  “So?” Roz observed.

  I stayed mute, raised one eyebrow.

  “Man from the store brought you an update,” she said. “No big deal. He sold you the wrong model, or they came out with a new model right after you bought the old one. Something like that. Your warranty covered it. No charge.”

  “Tell me about the guy from the store, Roz.”

  “He taught me how to use it. Neat.”

  “He gave you lessons? That must have taken a while.”

  “Well, he stayed maybe four, five hours.

  “What did he look like?”

  Roz stared at the floor. She never blushes, but when her eyes start searching for dust bunnies, you know she’s up to something. Such as concocting a likely story.

  No way would Roz let a strange woman into my house, much less near my desk and files. A man, however, a remotely fuckable man, and security precautions fly out the window.

  “The man who sold you the computer,” she said. “Old friend of Sam’s and all. Frank. Seemed like a friend of yours too.”

  “Tall; skinny; beard; long, greasy, graying hair?”

  “Tall. Thin. No beard, no gray, and a damned fine haircut,” she said. “Good-looking. You know, one of those boney, artsy faces—so ugly it crosses the line and turns handsome.”

  Sounded like Frank had made an effort to impress. Seemed like he’d succeeded.

  I surveyed my desk. The new equipment looked about twenty years newer and a hundred times costlier than my previous stuff. It included an extra telephone. A red one. The hot line.

  Roz continued, “Frank said you’d need a hard disk if you’re going to use Kermit or XMODEM, like to download—”

  “Kermit?” I said. “As in frog?”

  “It’s an FTP, a file transfer program,” Roz said, smirking. “Frank explained. He said I’m a natural, a potential ‘cyberpunk.’ Cyberpunk is very cool.”

  Great. I couldn’t fire her. She understood the new computer. The new printer. I hadn’t even bought a printer. I knew somebody with an extra who’d promised to donate it. Frank had tossed one into the grab bag.

  “Did you establish a lasting relationship with Frank, Roz?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know.”

  “He’s not a salesman, right?”

  “Right, Roz.”

  “Something funny going on.”

  “You’re on a streak.”

  “He seemed interested in you.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I lied a lot, for the hell of it, to string him along. I thought he was cute.”

  “Cute?” Maybe we weren’t talking about the same guy. “Intense?” I asked. “Talks fast?”

  “Yeah, that too. Kinda old, but very experienced, you know?”

  I kept quiet. I was afraid she’d tell me, in graphic detail.

  “I got the license number of his repair van.”

  “Good for you,” I said. Me, I like to minimally trust a guy before I go to bed with him. Roz regards sex as exercise, on a par with a good karate workout. If the CIA held an audition for the next Mata Hari, Roz would make the cut.

  They’d never take her. Too subversive.

  “What made you suspicious?” I asked.

  “He was too focused on you. Asked questions.”

  “Maybe he thinks I’m ‘cute,’” I said.

  “Van plate didn’t pan out.” She sighed. “Stolen. Later recovered. No leads. No damage.”

  “Guy’s a little old for joyriding, Roz.”

  “Not so old,” she said.

  Roz likes her men young, old, married, divorced, black, white. She’s equal opportunity, all the way.

  She went on, “When the license didn’t work, I was really pissed. Good thing I’d searched his wallet. You always say go for the Social Security number. His was right on his driver’s license. Dumb. Even I know enough not to put my SSN on my Mass. license.”

  “Bingo.” I didn’t want to ask how she’d managed the details. Probably picked the man’s pocket during a post-orgasmic snooze. You have to admire Roz.

  “And get this. It’s a total phony,” she said.

  “What?”

  “His SSN. F
rancis Tallifiero—that’s the name on the card—died at the age of two. In some hick town near Bangor, Maine.”

  “You didn’t copy the wrong number?”

  “Carlotta.”

  “Go finish whatever you were doing,” I said. “And don’t let the bastard in here again.”

  “Shit. My hair,” she said, grabbing at her turban and charging upstairs.

  No wonder the house smelled odd. The orange streaks were hair dye, not paint.

  And Frank was not Frank.

  Who knew? Sam knew.

  I dialed his number. His message machine answered. I started to hang up, decided to wait. I know the recording by heart. Five steady rings, then the pickup, the mechanical hum of spooling tape, the deep, sexy voice: “You’ve reached five five five, eight two five four. Sorry I can’t talk now. Leave your name and number after the beep and I’ll be in touch.”

  I listened to Sam’s bass-baritone, his phrasing. The pattern was as familiar as breathing, automatic, beyond thought.

  Abruptly, a new sentence: “In case of emergency, you can reach me at two oh two, five five five, oh three two three.” I recognized the Washington, D.C., area code.

  I picked up the receiver and pressed eleven buttons. A woman answered energetically. A pleasant voice. Youthful. Soprano. No discernible accent. Her simple, repeated “hello” threw me. I’d absolutely expected a hotel operator, an institutional response.

  On the subject of men, my bubbe liked to say, Me ken im getryen vi a kats smetene. “You can trust him like you can trust a cat with sour cream.” I clamped my tongue between my teeth.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?” she said. Then she must have turned away from the mouthpiece. I heard her mutter faintly, “Just a sec, honey, I’ll be right with you.”

  I said, “Excuse me, I think I may have the wrong number.”

  “What number are you trying to reach?” she asked politely.